Part 8 (2/2)
The Rest Of The In-Lots.
Corners, $120 each Not corners, 80 The out-lots, $100 each
”The payments are to be made in four annual instalments; the first at the time of sale.
”A bank is to be const.i.tuted by the sale of the lots.
”One-fourth of the lots are appropriated to the use of schools and religious purposes.
”One-half of the lots are to be given away to those who will improve them according to the articles of a.s.sociation. A person may have as many gift, or private donation out-lots, as he has such in-lots; the out-lots not required to be improved. The gift lots are to be disposed of on the following terms: the persons receiving them pay the prices above stated, and receive for the money thus paid, stock in the aforesaid bank. They are to improve the in-lots thus given to them, by building one dwelling-house for every such in-lot; one-half of the houses to be built within five years, and the other half within ten years, from the sale of said lots. The houses to be framed, brick, or stone, and to contain two rooms, and two fire-places each.”
The bank referred to was ”The Bank of Mount Carmel.” Its shares were ten dollars each. The proprietors might put into the stock one-half of the money received from the sale of proprietors' lots; all the money received for public donation lots was to be divided into three equal parts, one part to be funded in the bank in the name of the trustees (to be appointed) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the proceeds to be applied to the building of ”Methodist Episcopal meeting houses in the city of Mount Carmel, and to other religious purposes,” not including ministers'
salary; the second part to be funded in the name of the trustees (to be appointed) of a male academy; the third part to be similarly funded for a female academy; the money from private donation lots to be funded in the name of the purchasers, after deducting ten per cent for expenses, which ten per cent should remain in the bank as permanent stock. The articles of a.s.sociation were elaborate. The 18th article became known as the ”Blue Laws.” It read as follows: ”ART. 18. No theatre or play-house shall ever be built within the bounds of this city. No person who shall be guilty of drunkenness, profane swearing or cursing, Sabbath breaking, or who shall keep a disorderly house, shall gamble, or suffer gambling in his house, or raise a riot, or break the peace within the city, or be guilty of any other crime of greater magnitude in guilt than those here mentioned, and shall be convicted thereof before the mayor, council, or any other court having cognizance of such crime or crimes, shall be eligible to any office of the city of Mount Carmel or its bank, or be ent.i.tled to vote for any such officer, within three years after such conviction, notwithstanding anything in these articles to the contrary.”
The plan for a town was successful. Beauchamp was surveyor, pastor, teacher, and lawyer in the beginning of settlement. By 1819 a school was established; four or five years later a school-house was built; by 1820 Mt. Carmel circuit of the M. E. church had been formed; in 1825 a brick church was erected; the same year the town was incorporated by the state on the plan laid down in the articles of a.s.sociation; in 1827 the annual conference of the Illinois Conference was held at Mt. Carmel.
Beauchamp's health having improved he reentered the ministry in 1822, and at the General Conference two years later he lacked but two votes of being chosen bishop. He died in 1824.
Hinde, in 1825, was a member of the Wabash Navigation Company, consisting of seventeen prominent Indiana and Illinois men, and having a capital stock of one million dollars. He was one of the nine directors for the first year. He continued to be a contributor to periodical literature and became the biographer of his friend Beauchamp. In a letter from Mt.
Carmel, of May 6, 1842, Hinde says: ”I have just returned from the East, having visited the Atlantic cities generally for the first time, after forty-five years pioneering in the wilderness of the West. I have been three times a citizen of Kentucky, twice of Ohio, and twice of Illinois.”
Hinde died in 1846 and was buried at Mt. Carmel. Among his writings is found one of the most acute a.n.a.lyses of frontier character that has appeared. The writer points out that eastern ministers have often been unsuccessful and eastern immigrants unpopular, because they have underrated the people of the West, among whom there are many people of culture. They prefer ”the _useful_ to the s.h.i.+ning or showy talent.” In the West the best work has been done by westerners. The English spoken in the West is the purest to be found, because the various provincialisms of the immigrants are mutually corrective. The Virginian, who retained his unbounded hospitality, was the most prominent character in the West. ”If we expect to find on crossing the mountains a people either illiterate or ignorant as a body, we will a.s.suredly, in many instances, be happily disappointed. It too often happens, that one puffed up with self importance, and possessing a conceited and heated imagination, will form wild conjectures as to men and things. We have been amused at the bewildered minds of such, with the 'whys' and 'wherefores'; and one of the most ridiculous whims of some, is to endeavour to press every thing into their own _mould_; and shape it, be it what it may, if possible, after their own manner, custom, or operation, forgetting that 'we have to take the world as it is, and not as we would have it to be.' The fact is, an emigrant should come forth as an inquirer, and set himself down to learn at the threshold of experience. On this rock thousands have been injured, and none have suffered more than the English emigrants. Oh! with what poignant grief have I heard the English emigrant exclaim with the bitterest invectives on his own course and conduct, as to this particular.
Conceiving that he knew every thing, when he came here to test his experience, he soon found that he 'knew nothing.' This circ.u.mstance I have found too to have its bearings upon American emigrants from different states; upon families, upon individuals, and upon preachers also. How often have I heard the old settler complaining, (who having himself learned by _experience_) of the impertinent conduct of an emigrant, who sometimes carries his local policy through all the ramifications of his life, and often into the religious society, as well as elsewhere; he wis.h.i.+ng every thing done, as he saw it done in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and very often 'Old England' and 'Ireland!' as if men who have to act, and reflect upon the circ.u.mstances of the case, different from any ever before presented except among themselves, are to be governed by acts and doings of people in the moon!”(549) A man who thus knew the frontier was fitted to be the founder of a western town.
Rufus Easton was the founder of the town of Alton. Like Hinde, he brought to his work a fund of experience gained on the frontier and in public affairs. Easton was born at Was.h.i.+ngton, Litchfield county, Connecticut, in 1774. He descended from pioneers, being a direct descendant of Joseph Easton, who came from England to Newtowne, now Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, about 1633, and was later one of Rev. Thos. Hooker's colony which founded Hartford, Connecticut, of which Easton was an original proprietor. In 1792 Rufus Easton's father, a Tory, obtained a large grant of land near Wolford, now Easton Corners, Ontario. Rufus received a good education before studying law. In 1798 he was practicing law in Rome, New York, then a frontier town. November, 1801, Easton, with thirteen other prominent men, held a banquet to celebrate the election of Thos. Jefferson as President. The prominence of the young lawyer at this time is shown by the fact that he was consulted in regard to federal appointments, and that he was in 1803 a confidential correspondent of De Witt Clinton. The winter of 1803-4 Easton spent in Was.h.i.+ngton, where he became a friend of Aaron Burr, Postmaster-General Granger, and others. In the spring of 1804 he started for New Orleans. Aaron Burr gave him a letter of introduction to Abm. R.
Ellery, Esq., of New Orleans, in which he said: ”You will certainly be greatly amused to converse with a man who has pa.s.sed the whole winter in this city-who has had free intercourse with the officers of Govt. & members of Congress-who has discernment to see beyond the surface, and frankness and independence enough to speak his own sentiments.” Easton did not, however, go to New Orleans. He stopped for a short time at Vincennes and then located at St. Louis. He was appointed by Jefferson judge of the Territory of Louisiana and first postmaster of St. Louis. In September, 1805, Burr, Wilkinson and Easton had a conference at St. Louis. Easton turned a deaf ear to Burr's questionable proposals and from this time Wilkinson was hostile to Easton. Easton corresponded with Jefferson and Granger concerning the Burr conspiracy. Jefferson appointed him United States attorney, 1814-18 he was delegate to Congress from Missouri, 1821-26 he was attorney-general of Missouri. Easton was very prominent, entertaining almost all visitors of note. Edward Bates, Lincoln's attorney-general, read law in Easton's office.
Soon after coming to St. Louis, Easton began to buy up claims to land in Missouri and Illinois. When seeking to find a suitable place for a town in Illinois, he selected a point on the east bank of the Mississippi, twenty-five miles north of St. Louis and twenty miles south of the mouth of the Illinois. There was here a good landing place for boats, and also extensive beds of coal and limestone. The town was named Alton in honor of the founder's son. One hundred lots in the new town were donated to the support of the gospel and public schools, one-half of the proceeds to be devoted to each. This provision was confirmed by the act of incorporation of January 30, 1821, and the trustees were given the right to tax undonated lots for the support of schools. This latter provision was in advance of public sentiment and two years later it was repealed. Alton, like Mt. Carmel and to a much greater extent, proved the wisdom of its location. It has long been noted for its manufactures and is a thriving modern city.(550)
The town of Springfield, since 1839 the capital of Illinois, was laid out in 1822, before the land upon which it stood was offered for sale. When the land was sold in November, 1823, the section upon which the town stood was bought by Elijah Iles, Pascal Paoli Enos, Thomas c.o.x, and Daniel P.
Cook, each purchasing one quarter, but the t.i.tle being vested by agreement in Iles and Enos. Cook, like McDowell in the founding of Mt. Carmel, seems to have been a non-resident proprietor.
Elijah Iles was a child of the wilderness. He was born in Kentucky in 1796, and died at Springfield, Illinois, in 1883, leaving valuable reminiscences of his long experience on the frontier. His mother was Elizabeth Crockett Iles, a relative of David Crockett. Elijah attended school two winters and taught two winters. In 1812, although but sixteen years of age, he acted as deputy for his father, who was sheriff of Bath county, Kentucky. Some three years later his father gave him three hundred dollars, with which he bought one hundred head of yearling cattle. For three years he herded these cattle among the mountains of Kentucky, about twenty miles from civilization, having as his only companions his horse, dog, gun, milk cow, and the cattle. His meals usually consisted of a stew made of bear meat, venison, or turkey, and a piece of fat bacon. At the end of the three years the cattle were sold for about ten dollars a head, and the youthful dealer having attained his majority went to Missouri and became a land agent for eastern speculators, and soon began to speculate for himself. In 1821, concluding that Missouri was too far from a market, he sold some of his land and resolved to move to Illinois. At that time the site upon which Springfield was to stand had been chosen as the temporary county seat of Sangamon county, because eight men, some of whom had families, lived within a radius of two miles from the site, and at no other place in the county could the lawyers and judge secure board and lodging. Iles quickly discerned the advantages of the Sangamon country as a place of settlement, and straightway built a log store sixteen feet square, went to St. Louis and bought fifteen hundred dollars worth of goods, which he loaded on a keel-boat and had towed up the Mississippi and the Illinois by six men, whom he paid seventy-five dollars for their services. When the land was offered for sale, in 1823, Iles bought a quarter-section.
Another quarter-section of the town site was bought by Pascal Paoli Enos.
The fact that the frontier is a great social leveler is well ill.u.s.trated by the combination of Enos and Iles as joint owners of a town site. The Enos family had come from England in 1648, and Pascal Paoli Enos, son of Major-General Roger Enos, was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1770. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1794, studied law, was a member of the Vermont legislature in 1804, married in Vermont and moved to Cincinnati in 1815, later to St. Charles, Missouri, then to St. Louis, then to Madison county, Illinois, and in 1823 was appointed by President Monroe receiver of public moneys for the land-office in the District of Sangamo. Thus the elderly scholar joined the shrewd but youthful frontiersman.
Col. Thomas c.o.x was the third of the trio of the resident proprietors of Springfield. He had signed a pet.i.tion for the division of Randolph county in 1812, represented Union county as a senator in the first general a.s.sembly of Illinois, and in 1820 was appointed register of the land-office at Vandalia. In 1823 he came to Springfield as register of the land-office at that place. Col. c.o.x was six feet tall, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and was a drunkard within a short time after the founding of Springfield.
The most important thing about the founding of the town is the heterogeneous character of its founders. A few incidents in their subsequent history will emphasize this, and also show how well they worked together when surrounded by the same conditions. When the commissioners came to locate a permanent county seat Springfield, then called Calhoun, had a formidable rival for the honor. Iles and Enos managed to have a mutual friend engaged as guide to the commissioners. The guide conducted them to the rival settlement by a long and rough route and upon being requested to take them back over a shorter route he took a course more difficult still. The commissioners decided that the rival settlement was inaccessible. Iles was twice state senator, major in the Winnebago war, and captain in the Black Hawk war, in which he served with Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart, Robt. Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, and others. Iles was also a large stock dealer, selling hogs and cattle in St. Louis and mules in Kentucky, until 1838, in which year he lost ten thousand dollars on hogs packed at Alton. In 1838-9 he built the American House in Springfield. This was then the largest hotel in the state and its erection created a great sensation. He was four times state senator, and was an officer of the Bank of Edwardsville. Enos held his position as receiver until removed for political reasons by Jackson in 1829. c.o.x had an eventful career. He was removed from his position of register, under charges of misconduct, early in 1827; the next year he was keeping a hotel in Springfield; later he removed to Iowa, then Wisconsin, having secured a contract for the survey of public lands. He was three times a member of the Iowa territorial House of Representatives and twice a member of the territorial Council. A band of murderers, horsethieves, counterfeiters, and blacklegs, having gained possession of the town of Bellevue, on the Mississippi, in Jackson county, Iowa, Col. c.o.x led the citizens in a successful attack in which seven men were killed outright and some ten or fifteen wounded. At this time c.o.x was recognized as a p.r.o.nounced drunkard, but his undoubted courage, ability to command, and strong physique secured him a following.(551)
Shadrach Bond, the first governor of Illinois, and Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant-governor, were both poorly educated, but they had a good knowledge of men and a large fund of information concerning practical affairs.(552) Edward Coles, the second governor of the state, is a good example of the polished, well-educated gentleman succeeding with a rude const.i.tuency. Coles was born in 1786, in Albemarle county, Virginia, fitted for college by private tutors, educated at Hampden Sidney and later at William and Mary College. His father's home was visited by Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, the Randolphs, Tazwell, Wirt, and others. For six years Coles was the private secretary of President Madison, and during this time he became an intimate friend of Nicholas Biddle. In 1815 he visited Illinois in what must have seemed at that time great state, for he traveled not only with a horse and buggy, but with a servant and a saddle-horse as well. In 1816-17 he was sent as a special messenger to Russia, stopping at Paris on his return, meeting Louis XVIII.
of France and becoming a friend of Lafayette. In 1819 he came to Edwardsville, Illinois, emanc.i.p.ated his slaves, and a.s.sumed his duties as register of the land-office. The rough pioneers were very anxious to get a t.i.tle to their lands. ”When the settler reached Edwardsville, dressed in jeans and wearing moccasins, with his money in his belt, having traveled on foot or on horseback long distances, and first presented himself to the Register of the Land Office, there he found Edward Coles, who had recently emigrated into the State from Virginia. It was known to some of them that he had been the private secretary for President Madison, and had been on an important mission to Europe.
”They found him a young man of handsome, but somewhat awkward personal appearance, genteelly dressed, and of kind and agreeable manners. The anxious settler was at once put at ease by the suavity of his address, the interest he appeared to feel in aiding him, and the thoroughly intelligent manner in which he discharged his duty. No man went away who was not delighted with his intercourse with the 'Register.' And herein is ill.u.s.trated the great mistake so often made by politicians and candidates for popular favor. Too many candidates for the suffrage of the people in our early political contests thought it necessary, in order to make themselves popular, to affect slovenly and unclean dress and vulgar manners in their campaigns. There was never a greater mistake. However rough, ill-clothed and unintelligent the voter might be, he always preferred to vote for the man who was dressed and acted like a gentleman to the one who dressed like and acted like himself.”(553) Coles was always dignified, always gentlemanly, and always respected. His brief residence in Illinois affected its history for all time to come. Like Coles in several respects was his successor as governor, Ninian Edwards. Born in Maryland in 1775, educated by the celebrated William Wirt, and later graduating from d.i.c.kinson College, Pennsylvania, at nineteen years of age he came to Kentucky. Here he served two terms in the Kentucky legislature, was presiding judge of the general court, circuit judge, and chief-justice of the court of appeals. Henry Clay gave as Edwards' marked characteristics, good understanding, weight of character, and conciliatory manners. In his campaign for governor of Illinois, Edwards presented himself as the highest type of a polished and well-dressed gentleman, always riding in his own carriage and driven by his negro servant, and dressing in all the style of an old-fas.h.i.+oned gentleman with broad-cloth coat, ruffled s.h.i.+rt, and high-topped boots. The people were not repelled by such a display, but considered it an honor to vote for such a man. The egotistical Adolphus Frederick Hubbard, who was one of the two opponents of Edwards, intermingled bad grammar and poor attempts at wit in his electioneering speeches, and received less than one-tenth of the number of votes cast for either of the two other candidates.(554)
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